From the Divine to the Human: Survey of Metaphsis and Epistemology (The Library of Traditional Wisdom) - Softcover

Schuon, Frithjof

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0941532011 ISBN 13: 9780941532013

Publisher: World Wisdom Books, 1982

Synopsis

Schuon is known as a philosopher in the literal sense of the word, a "lover of wisdom." It is a wisdom that is inseparable from a sense of the sacred, which is the unique prerogative of humankind. The diverse subjects covered by these essays include a discussion on the symbolism of the human body, an outline of spiritual anthropology as well as a chapter on the structure and universality of the conditions of existence. Underlying this diversity of topics, is a perspective that combines mathematical rigor with a kind of musical profundity. The entry of the Absolute into the world of time and space gives birth to the traditional worlds, the great Revelations that manifest in so many ways both Divine Unity and human immortality. As Schuon writes, "the man for whom each Message is providentially destined must recognize in it what is best in himself; he cannot escape the truth of his call any more than he can escape existentially the reality of his heart."

About this title

About the Author

Frithjof Schuon is best known as the foremost spokesman of the religio perennis and as a philosopher in the metaphysical current of Shankara and Plato. Over the past 50 years, he has written more than 20 books on metaphysical, spiritual and ethnic themes as well as having been a regular contributor to journals on comparative religion in both Europe and America. Schuon's writings have been consistently featured and reviewed in a wide range of scholarly and philosophical publications around the world, respected by both scholars and spiritual authorities.

Schuon was born in 1907 in Basle, Switzerland, of German parents. As a youth, he went to Paris, where he studied for a few years before undertaking a number of trips to North Africa, the Near East and India in order to contact spiritual authorities and witness traditional cultures. Following World War II, he accepted an invitation to travel to the American West, where he lived for several months among the Plains Indians, in whom he has always had a deep interest. Having received his education in France, Schuon has written all his major works in French, which began to appear in English translation in 1953. Of his first book, The Transcendent Unity of Religions (London, Faber & Faber) T.S. Eliot wrote: "I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion."

The traditionalist or "perennialist" perspective began to be enunciated in the West at the beginning of the twentieth century by the French philosopher Rene Guenon and by the Orientalist and Harvard professor Ananda Coomaraswamy. Fundamentally, this doctrine is the Sanatana Dharma--the "eternal religion"--of Hindu Vedantists. It was formulated in the West, in particular, by Plato, by Meister Eckhart in the Christian world, and is also to be found in Islam with Sufism. Every religion has, besides its literal meaning, an esoteric dimension, which is essential, primordial and universal. This intellectual universality is one of the hallmarks of Schuon's works, and it gives rise to many fascinating insights into not only the various spiritual traditions, but also history, science and art.

The dominant theme or principle of Schuon's writings was foreshadowed in his early encounter with a Black marabout who had accompanied some members of his Senegalese village to Switzerland in order to demonstrate their culture. When the young Schuon talked with him, the venerable old man drew a circle with radii on the ground and explained: "God is in the center, all paths lead to Him."

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Author's Preface

We did not have the intention of writing a preface for this new book, but we were told that readers unused to our thought would no doubt wish to know at the outset the underlying doctrine that unites subjects at first sight disparate. Now this doctrine they will find in this book itself; they will also find it in its most explicit form in some of our preceding works, notably in Logic and Transcendence and Esoterism as Principle and as Way. Besides, we do not think that this book is more difficult of approach than the average works of profane philosophy; on the contrary, it seems to us that our way of expressing ourselves, even if at times condensed, as it has been remarked, tends to a maximum of clarity and even of simplicity; if difficulties remain, they are in the subject and consequently in the nature of things.

Moreover, our position is well known: it is fundamentally that of metaphysics, and the latter is by definition universalist, "dogmatist" in the philosophical sense of the term, and traditionalist; universalist because free of all denominational formalism; "dogmatist" because far from all subjectivist relativism, we believe that knowledge exists and that it is a real and efficacious adequation and traditionalist because the traditions are there to express, in diverse ways, but unanimously, this quintessential position --at once intellectual and spiritual-- which in the final analysis is the reason for the existence of the human spirit.

Edition details

• Publisher: World Wisdom Books
• Publication date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0941532011
• ISBN 13: 9780941532013
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 156